Bus passengers undressed, robbed

By Luke Kagiri

MITYANA - Property and money worth millions of shillings was on Monday morning robbed from passengers aboard a Kalita bus, travelling from Kasese to Kampala.
 
According to police, the 3:00am local time incident happened at Mpamujugu swamp, about 10 kilometers from Mityana on the Mubende highway.
 
Henry Kintu, the Mityana district police commander said armed thugs stopped the bus at this swamp, and diverted it into the bush before they robbed the passengers.
 
He said the thugs undressed the passengers, assaulted them and forced them out of the bus, then searched the bus for money and other valuable commodities like laptops, mobile phones and other gadgets.

Most of the passengers, en route to Kampala to purchase merchandise, were traders from, Bwera at the Democratic Republic of Congo border with Kasese.

"Nobody sustained serious injuries. According to the information they are giving us, the thugs were more than five and some of them were armed," Kintu said.
 
Easyman Nsubuga, the driver of ill-fated bus registration number UAS 739J said the thugs intercepted the bus by blocking the road with another lorry.

"They had stopped a milk truck and left it in the middle of the road, so when we stopped, they drove the bus themselves to the bush, from where they robbed us," Nsubuga said.
 
Police said by the time they learnt about the incident, they intervened, but the thugs had already left the scene. Kintu said they tried to trace the thugs, but in vain.

The bus was driven to Mityana police station, where the passengers recorded statements, and later continued their journey to Kampala. Some of the friends and relatives who had learnt about the incident rushed to Mityana to help the victims.
 
Kintu warned drivers to avoid travelling at night.

"The passengers too must be careful, not to travel with big sums of money, important equipment [gadgets] and even at night," he warned.

The incident comes barely a days after the owner of Kalita bus company, Lucky Youngman succumbed to cancer and two buses of the same company were involved in an accident.